Imagine a really good programme about spiritualism which describes the knocking, table turning, ectoplasm etc tells us the famous scientists, novelists etc that believed in it at the time, tells us that it must be true but…………. then shows us the alternative explanations and explains the evidence which shows it is all hoax.
What evidence ‘it is all hoax’? This is also a skeptic belief system, a faith .. if not it must be a paranormal claim to know what really occured 100 years ago when not actually being present.
The fox sisters took up quite a lot of the start. The programme told of the knocking, the fame, the convincing demonstrations to scientists etc but didn’t have time to include anything about the confessions.
Which they retracted one year later, what does that conclusively mean? Take your pick
(a) The Fox Sisters were fully fraudulent and therefore all earlier and later spiritualistic phenomena are fraudulent?
(b) The Fox Sisters were partially fraudulent
(c) The Fox Sisters became alcoholic willing to do anything for money
(d) The Fox Sisters were under pressure from Christian relatives to condemn spiritualism or face Christian damnation
Who cares? It really makes no difference because spiritualistic type phenomena was not invented by the Fox Sisters, their media publicity merely captured the public attention that led to yet another organized religion formerly outlawed as ‘witchcraft’ by Christianity. 70 years before the Fox Sisters, Emmanuel Swedenbourg, a leading scientist was claiming to experience spiritualistic like phenomena personally occurring to him . Spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis, was also 5 years before any Fox Sisters claims. Centuries before Daniel Dunglas Home were witness claims of monks levitating, etc. The idea spiritualistic phenomena started with the Fox Sisters is a myth of both spiritualism and scepticism, it was merely new labels for very old claimed phenomena, nearly all later spiritualist type phenomena is referred to in the Bible and other ancient religions, such as hand guided to write words (automatic writing), speaking in tongues (trance mediumship) , temporary physically solid reappearance after death (materialisation), voices from nowhere out of mid air (independent/direct voice), walking on water (levitation) and so on. …….’Spiritualism’ was merely a set of new label(s) i.e. paranormal claims occurring outside the control of Christian approval and this led to Victorian spiritualists being opposed by both sceptical scientists and Christianity
I feel a letter to the beeb coming on.
Why complain? What did you want the program to do, offer some unproven skeptic club revisionism instead?
Why should the obligatory CSICOP skeptic have the last opinion on any paranormal TV program (as they campaign TV stations to do) just to offer unproven revision? Is there opinion more valuable than the opinion of the famous scientists who were actually there but no longer around to defend their experiences?
I supposed you would have been much happier if Sue Blackmore, who doesn’t attend seances, gave her tuppence worth yet again but instead you got Professor David Fontana viewpoint on the program who investigated the Scole Report séances and has experienced other poltergeist phenomena first hand … and even challenged skeptic magicians to try and reproduce the phenomena he witnessed under exactly the same controls [long silence so far, the Scole report ended in the 1990s] . Nor was spiritualistic phenomena always successfully reproduced by magicians challenged to reproduce it in Victorian times either, there are several accounts of magicians being present and finding no fraud.
Or you could have the ubiquitous skeptic Professor Richard Wiseman (invited to Scole report seances but was apparently too busy to attend) whose brief trial on 5 mediums found no evidence . …… but instead you got Professor Archie Roy’s on program viewpoint instead who claims a long term controlled trials of many more psychics producing an effect far beyond cold reading possibilities.
Yes, I also think this was one of the very few programs today more under the control of proponents than usual. If that sounds unfair, perhaps, frankly it made a interesting change. Until the 1990s it was against the broadcasting laws for any program to claim spiritualistic type phenomena as genuine without a obligatory skeptic (and Christian) viewpoint being expressed too, fair enough but what has always been absent is scepticism of organized scepticism, where confidence of belief and pretence of representing the opinion of science often seems more important than proper research. It is still against the law unless offered as ‘entertainment’. ….. if you are unhappy, why not sue the BBC?
I doubt that would work, the program was entertainment, when did they say the phenomena was real? If Fontana implied it, well in his case having investigated it to a degree none of the famous skeptics have done so, I think his opinion should be allowed some freedom of speech?
Perhaps parapsychologists and skeptics are making similar assumptions, that paranormal phenomena must be under earthly human mind control ….. even Randi is doing this, he implies unless someone can win his 1million all paranormal phenomena must be false ………. Yet that is seldom the actual claim of most paranormal claimants (with the exception of dowser types) a small minority claim to be in personal command of psychic phenomena, gnerally the ones who have done so turn out ot be magicians or later admit fraud.
Is it more valid to have Randi’s TV opinion, when he has tested less that 20? (more? less?) psychics in the past 8 years to win his 1 million? His brief preliminary trials would miss any weak effect, the Ganzfeld even when at its most successful would probably be missed and dismissed and that is for effects claimed to be under human control .....again the rarer claim.
Is scepticism now a faith? To claim all Victorian mediumship was fraudulent actually requires some rather contrived logic………. For example skeptics happily quote Victorian skeptic Dr Richard Hodgson’s opinion when he exposes HP Blavatsky and other dubious mediums but yet when he cautiously later claims medium Leonora Piper is genuine, do we now assume he became a gullible bloody idiot instead?
When magician Harry Price claims Rudi Schneider, Helen Duncan etc. are frauds (although disputed by others researchers and 4 other magicians at time) skeptics use this information as valid yet when the same Harry Price claims Stella Crenshaw or the ghosts of Borley Rectory are genuine, he is considered to be considered a liar by skeptics instead?
The skeptic claims of ‘all cases were fraudulent or hoaxes’ has little conclusive evidence unless you trust a suspicion of fraud as proof of fraud, and frankly what paranormal claim isn’t met with a claim of fraud by some skeptic, somewhere? The standards of logic used by skepticism are often as biased as the standard of evidence often claimed by proponents.
This program, if it encourages a proper TV debate between the well informed proponents and skeptical opponents, that might be a good thing ….. as far as I am concerned after reading both sides of the debate I am not convinced either side would win ….. perhaps we should all admit ‘ we don’t know anything for sure' ...... yet and for that reason, progrmas of this type without skepticism, prematurely ruling something out, have some merit.
